General questions that require a specific answer

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I hate when people ask general questions that want a specific answer. For example when you're talking to someone about something, and all of a sudden they say, "so what do you want to do now?" or "so what are you thinking?" or "what's going on?" It confuses me so much because I know they're talking about something that has to do with the previous topic, but I don't know exactly what it is they want me to share my feelings on.

Yesterday I had to phone a lady whose house I'll be moving into in a week. She had just finished telling me that she was unable to take pictures of the room for me, and after she had finished she said "What do you want to do now?" We had already settled that I would definitely be moving in, but I wasn't sure whether she was asking if I still wanted to move in without pictures, whether I wanted her to try to get her camera to work again, or what other information I needed from her. I went with the latter and moved on to a different topic, which made her confused and then she asked whether I still wanted the room. I don't understand how people are able to ascertain these sorts of things, it's like I'm expected to be able to mind read or something.

Don't worry that is confusing my first thought to her asking the question in that senario was, "Go back to what I was doing?" "move in?" and "get a snack,"

I do admit to asking simular questions but I try to be more specific example if I finished telling my boyfriend about something I will ask him "What are your thoughts on the whole thing," I want to know what he is thinking. Not sure what she wanted

I also often ask what people are thinking because I can't read facail expressions and I am not sure how to innicaite converstation.

weird, ive navigated these situations a bit innately (which is indeed weird since i do have an official AS DX)

I know how it is. I can also get these weird questions, where I have no idea what to answer.
Most of the time, I go with what sounds most logical to me, but that fails alot.

I get in that situation a lot, too. I just ask, "Not sure what you are specifically asking about by that. Could you explain?" or something like that. Ask for clarification.

Great advice, which is how I normally deal with it.

This might be slightly off-topic, but I've noticed when people pose a hypothetical question at me, in general terms, looking for a specific answer, I can identify it (usually because the hypothesis is not logical - gotta love NTs for that), and I ask in reply, "What are you *really* asking?"

Similar to OP, but different.

I find that the question "How are you?" is very difficult to answer.

"I'm okay" is usually the correct answer on that one, unless they're asking about something specific. It's particularly confusing when you're not okay, though, and then you have to figure out if you're supposed to lie or not. (Like, can it be held against you if you say that you're okay?)

I get confused by those type of questions. I usually just ask the person if they could be more specific.

OMG those are the woooorrrrrssst. I REALLY hate "so what did you do today?" because it's like, uuh.. I did lot's of stuff, but I don't know which stuff YOU want to hear about. You want to know if I did something productive, right? NO, I DID NOT, THERE YOU GO. But wait! Maybe I DID do something productive, I'm not actually sure what counts as productive to you. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO SAY.

But anyway, yeah, your example is perfect, because I totally can't tell what that lady meant. XD; I think people must be able to formulate ideas of what they want to do on the spot, and there's like a natural path that the mind usually follows for ideas and solutions or something, so I guess NT people follow that usually, (like, think of your area of expertise, your "special interest".. doesn't your mind just zip along so naturally when you're thinking about that? That ability must be spread out over many subjects for NTs) so a normal person would have already had an idea of what they wanted to do, so they wouldn't have even wondered what she had meant.

That's what I think, anyways.

To some extent, it depends on if the person who is asking is someone to whom you would want to divulge your troubles. There are a bunch of things you can say that are not lying. "No use complaining" is the most popular, I think. Then, if the person really wants to hear what is wrong, they can say, "Oh go ahead, you can complain to me."

I struggle with general questions that require specific answers. My usual response is to say "as in...?" and wait for the person to elaborate on what they want me to say.

I just don't answer those questions.

I know what you mean. I feel like I am in a play and don't know the script. If I recognize what they are asking as small talk, I will repeat one of the expected lines from the small talk "script." If not, I will ask for clarification.

Ah yes, programmed responses. These are very useful in the right context. I can also program in one-liner jokes to respond to certain keywords or phrases, so people end up thinking I'm funny, meanwhile it's a side process that I'm not really thinking about.

It`s mainly a social question, just to break the ice. "How are you?" I`m ok, you?" and so on, just something to start conversation with. They don`t really want to hear an answer. However i find it very interesting when you answer properly, totally freaks them out and breaks their rhythm


As for original question, it`s usually best to ask for some more information if you aren`t sure. Like "what do you mean?" or similar.